But this, too, as has been already related, missed the mark. Albano acquainted Schoppe directly with his suspicion of some unpleasant event. The latter was just on the point of giving an answer, when he was spared the necessity by a panting messenger from Blumenbühl, who handed Albano the following note from Spener:-- "P. P. "Your highborn grace must with all speed be informed that the mortally sick Fraülein von Froulay desires most earnestly this very day to speak with your highness _in person_; and you have so much the more need to haste, as, according to her own representation, she can hardly with the least probability be expected, especially as patients of this _genre_ can always foresee their death accurately, to survive the present evening, but must pass out of this mortality into the eternal glory. In my own person, I need hardly admonish your grace as a Christian, that a soft, still, pious, and devout demeanor would be far more suitable and seemly than cruel worldly sorrow beside the dying-bed of this glorious bride of Christ, in regard to whose death every heart will wish, 'Lord, be my death like that of this just one!' With this suggestion, I remain, with distinguished respect, "Your highborn grace's submissive "Joachim Spener, _Court Chaplain_. "P. S. If your highness does not come directly with the messenger, I beg earnestly the favor of a few lines in reply." Albano said not a word, gave the note to his friend, pressed his hand gently, took his hat, and went slowly and with dry eyes out into the road that led up to the mountain-castle. 96. CYCLE. He hurried along with a shudder round by the spot where the corpse-seeress had stood the previous night, in order to behold her dreams, transformed into dark-clad human beings, wind slowly down from the mountain-road. It was a still, warm, blue after-summer afternoon. The evening red of the year, the ruddy-glowing foliage, stole from mountain to mountain; on dead pastures the poisonous saffron-flowers stood together untouched; on the overspun stubble spiders were still working away at the flying summer, and setting up a few threads as the ropes and sails wherewith it was to hasten its flight. The wide circle of air and earth was still, the whole heaven cloudless, and the soul of man heavily overcast. Albano's heart rested upon the season as a head rests upon the executioner's block. Naught did he see in the wide blue of heaven but Liana soaring therein; nothing, nothing on the earth, but her prostrate, empty form.